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Grayvale: a brief History
Gray vale All throughout human history, inexplicable events have permeated certain cultures. Ancient civilizations were credited as having created monoliths in ways that we cannot reproduce with modern technology. The early investigators credited things like the pyramids and Stonehenge to aliens and lizard men living in the center of the earth. If only they knew how close they were to the truth. In reality what had occurred was a weakening in the space between our world and another, a tear in the veil of reality as we understand it. When mankind was primitive the tear was larger. Fantastic creatures and incomprehensible beings found their way over to this side of the veil and took root. They spawned various religions and cults surrounding them and the humans worshipped them as divine beings. They created great floods, caused horrific famines, spread disease, triggered natural disasters. But those same creatures also taught the humans how to survive. They taught them how to farm and raise livestock, how to harness fire, how to trap the wind to push their sails and grind their grain. Later on they taught them how to use electricity, and build machines. As time went on, the strange beings retreated back into the veil. And as a result contact with the beings began to diminish until it was almost impossible to contact them directly. Over many generations people began to doubt the creatures ever existed and wrote them off as myths and legends. Those who knew otherwise tried fruitlessly to contact them again, but no answer ever came. Instead the beings chose to speak to those they deemed worthy through visions and sparks of genius. Children could suddenly speak languages they never heard, autistic savants who couldn’t focus were suddenly carving intricate pieces out of stone. Women who did not possess much physical strength were documented as having moved immense stones to place them in astrologically significant formations. Eventually those chosen would refine their craft down to a single crude item. The icons needed to peer through the veil and commune with the beings that had left us. They created artifacts, totems of immense power and influence. Initially, life carried on as before. America thrived in an industrial revolution that sent it rocketing forward in time. But as mankind grew, so did their lust for power. The chosen’s artifacts became well known in certain circles around the world and as such, the world began to burn itself to acquire them. Modern historians attribute the wars of the 1900’s over petty things like racial hatred or desire for land; when in truth every war in the world was fought over control of the gateway to the veil, and the beings within to advance their own agenda. When it came to war, no country was better at it than America. Gathering all the power from the surrounding continents they built for themselves an institutional body dedicated to the collection and preservation of every available power source, the illuminati. Working in secrecy and silence, the illuminati guarded America and the world at large from incursions. Occasionally an otherworldly creature would slip through the veil, a horned rabbit here, a goliath ape man there. All were captured and catalogued in an archive in Washington, and its existence written off as an urban legend. However, unbeknownst to America and most of Europe, germany was in its own renaissance as well. A power mad country, germany had tried to bring the whole continent and the world under its thumb after amassing a considerable amount of magical totems themselves. What came to pass, however, was Germany being defeated both times in its mad quest for dominion over the earth. But the world was now changed forever. With the advent of cameras and recording equipment being so prevalent, history books had to be rewritten and the facts obscured as to what really took place on those battlefields. The worlds governments decided that obscuring the truth was paramount to order and so many of the fantastical portions of the war were merely rewritten, or scrubbed entirely. This pattern repeated itself over and over through every subsequent war and inexplicable incident that claimed human life, culminating in the sept 11th attacks of 2001. No one knows how the Islamic cult responsible gained access to the arcane totems that lead to the event, but what followed was nearly 2 decades of war that seemed unwinnable. Eventually, America decided that to win the war, they needed to reveal the truth. They opened a portal to the veil in the Middle East, flooding it with fantasy creatures. Dragons, orcs, wizards and knights razed the Middle East to the ground. when their task was completed, they simply returned to the veil as if paying a debt. After that, peace came. The fantasies of generations of people were revealed to be fact, and their imaginations exploded. Curious adventurers and explorers begged the governments of the world to allow them access to the veil. In the year 2017, the decision was made to open 1 portal on every continent that would all lead to a central location. Within a matter of days the world was introduced to the tower of the seven. Videos detailing it showed a sprawling marble building that overlooked a giant gray cityscape. The video stated that travelers were allowed access to the tower, but were forbidden from leaving it, as the city below was not cleared for safety. The lucky few people who entered the veil were the usual sort, celebrities and politicians looking for a sound bite. But as they were restricted to the tower, they quickly lost interest. Then came the historians and scientists who were more than content to merely sit in an area that was brand new and observe. They documented the change in seasons, the veil matched our seasonal pattern give or take a month, but had its own unique weather as well. More than water fell from the sky, and at times the weather required magical shielding. Acid rain here was very true to its namesake. Next came the anthropologists and sociologists to document the people who lived in the veil. Many were bipedal humanoids but very few were what we knew to be human. Elves, orcs, dwarves, goblins, etc all roamed the city below seemingly unaware of the gleaming white tower that loomed in the sky. They bartered and sold goods in traditional markets, they sang songs in native festivals, they held religious services, and acted like what we would consider normal people. As time went on the tower began to slowly lower itself to the ground, until it made landfall in December of 2017. All at once the humanoids who were surrounding the tower recoiled in fright. It would later be revealed that the tower was in fact hidden from view all the time it had been in the sky, but now that was on the ground the enchantment had faded. The tower remained closed off to the city though the people within were still able to be seen and heard from the windows. The natives of the city stayed clear and the people in the tower were told not to interact with them unless they did so first. First contact happened in January of 2018. The anthropology team that had remained in the tower for new years began to sing amongst themselves. A passing group of elven children began to mimic the tones, until they were all singing together. This attracted the other groups who had been nearby and after many days, the language of common was established. This new knowledge was brought back to the earth and was taught in schools-eventually becoming the worlds language. With the ability to speak to the natives, the same politicians and celebrities who had dismissed the city in the veil returned, but were rebuffed by the natives for not understanding their customs and traditions. As such those initial scientists became ambassadors to the veil themselves, educating the masses on how to behave beyond our world. In april 2018, the tower of the 7 was finally opened to the general public as was the city below. The tower itself had grown immensely during that period straight up into the air like a tree. The tourists were given strict instructions: follow the rules posted, do not commit crimes, and return to the tower by nightfall. Other than that, they were free to move about as they pleased. Since the city beyond the veil also used gold and silver as currency the business of exchanging paper money for gold became huge. The people of the earth no longer sought jewelry to wear, but to break down to its core components for use as money, and for good reason. The goods purchased in the veil were beyond human comprehension and could do any number of things. They came with a caveat though. They only worked in the veil. Items like healing potions had to be imbibed in the veil otherwise the potion would become water as it passed through the portal to earth. Similarly certain earth inventions would cease to function outside of the earth. Cellphones and other modern electronic devices simply shorted out. However older things like crank operated video cameras worked, as did black and white television. The cultural exchange happened back and forth for many years until in the year 2020 both the earth and the city beyond the veil were as close as possible to technological parity. Magic and science had coalesced into a society beyond limits. Until the murders began. In the summer of 2020, various human and veil-folk bodies would appear murdered in public places with notes hanging from their bodies warning both sides not to get too familiar with each other. Naturally tensions flared on both sides, each wanting the same answers as the other. It took a man by the name of Psu Do-Hyun, a Korean national and politician to unite the two sides. He had taken an elven bride, a high elf named El’aijana and fathered many children with her. Doing so was a social taboo at the time, but a galvanizing statement all the same. He rallied the two opposing factions under his banner, becoming the first mayor of the city behind the veil. Renaming it “gray vale” due to its space between two worlds much like a valley between two peaks. The people unanimously appointed him and his wife as the leaders of the vale. Giving them the title, “Mother and Father psu” he governed the veil for many years, running unopposed the whole time. None who dared match wits with father psu could withstand his ferocity and intelligence. But all the same he was a kind and loving man who did his best for the vale. His entire tenure as mayor saw him bring back the peace the vale had thought lost forever. He was credited for organizing and supervising his guards and the earth rangers in order to arrest hundreds of rabble rousers on both sides, xenophobes bemoaning tainted blood lines and half breeds. Their punishments fit their crimes and were carried out in public. Eventually the message got through, and the murders ceased. He retired in 2037 as an almost deific figure, and his son Psu Do-Hyeon became the new mayor, again, unopposed. “father psu” became “uncle psu” and spent his days in the vale enjoying the parks with his wife, a high elf named In'shalla. The new father psu was much like his dad, although being a mixture of human and elf gave him a level of charisma that even uncle psu could not attain. The people of the veil loved father psu, and his son which they revered as “brother psu”. Both were attractive playboy types that women would swoon over. Father psu’s wife was herself a high elf that would turn heads with her beauty and grace. Brother psu was an elementary school child, but no less successful than his father in matters of love. Whenever uncle, father, and brother were in the same room, the atmosphere was electric. And grayvale entered a new age of peace. However unbeknownst to the people in the veil, there was a darkness brewing. enemies from different worlds and different planes of existence are working in secret to disrupt the balance and either claim this new world as their own-or destroy it entirely Welcome to gray vale.